Diamond Lake Series: Complete Series (Bks 1-7) Boxset Read online

  John hurt me sober? Rising to my feet, I headed into the half-bathroom across the living room and looked into the mirror. My eye was blood red—he had popped a blood vessel. Tears welled in my eyes as my eyebrows furrowed in disgust.

  Four days wasn’t soon enough to leave—I was leaving today.

  Chapter 2

  Leaving my husband wasn’t going to be easy, especially with his connections and the amount of money he could throw toward tracking me down wherever I went. John thought of me as a stupid dependent woman who relied heavily on him—I wasn’t. I was smart and did a great deal of thinking about my plan to leave. I thought of who he would call, what he would do, and just what extremes he’d be willing to go to in order to stop me. I knew I was truly John’s world—his everything. Without me here to fold his laundry and be his personal punching bag, he’d be a hopeless wreck.

  In order to make it out alive, I would need to move quickly and not leave a trail of clues for him and his police chief’s buddies to find. Vanishing wasn’t exactly easy, but it could be done.

  A few weeks ago, I traveled to Burlington in Vermont, which was over a three-hour drive from Albany, New York, where I lived. That trip was just to get a fake ID. My friend, Debbie Wadsworth, was kind enough to let me not only use her for an alibi for John, but also to let me know about our old high school classmate, Milton Dewy, who was involved with a bunch of shady stuff in Burlington. She had heard he got busted a couple of different times for distributing fake IDs through another friend. She said he was selling them to students on high school campuses and that there was a good chance he was still making them. I made a day trip over to Burlington and got the ID after a painful hunt across eight different campuses. That day wasn’t easy, but I felt it was vital if I was going to remain invisible once I left.

  As the front door shut that morning when John left for work, I waited patiently at the kitchen table with my cup of coffee in hand. John had a bad habit of always leaving something behind in the mornings on his way out to work. The front door opened moments later. He said through the foyer, “Kind of need car keys to go. Eh?”

  I forced that fake smile one last time onto my face. I stood up and retrieved his keys from the counter and headed to the foyer. Coming to him, my heart pounded and sweat began to bead on my forehead. You can do this. Leaning in, I let my lips catch his bottom lip. Even the most evil man I had grown to know had qualities I couldn’t help but know I’d miss. Drinking in his distinct smell, I let my lips glide down his neck and to his collar.

  “What are you doing?” he asked inquisitively as he reluctantly pulled back. “Why are you torturing me when I have to leave for work?”

  “I’m just going to miss you.” My double meaning hid behind my eyes, but it was fully seen and felt within my own heart. Soon, I’d be on a new path in life, and the painful memories that were stored away in the walls of this house would be nothing but a forgotten nightmare.

  He smiled and tipped his chin with an air of arrogance. “Tonight, I want to take you out to the city. It’ll be fun. We’ll eat, dance, and get a hotel.”

  Though I hated the man, I had pleasant memories mingled in with painful ones. “Yeah, let’s do that,” I replied, smiling as I thought about all the memories of New York City I had with him. There was one night we had in the city that I’ll never forget. It was the closest thing to magic I had ever found in real life. Our fingers intertwined with one another as we walked down Times Square, headed to catch a movie after a late dinner. The lights, the people, the energy. Everything felt so alive and vibrant. When one of my feet almost landed in a puddle, John caught me up in his arms and carried me over it just to avoid it. It was sweet. The best part was that he ended up stepping into a different puddle nearby. For some reason, it was funny and we laughed. Falling into his chest, I remembered feeling as alive like the city was that night. I’ll never forget how happy I was. My cheeks burned that night just as I’d grown to expect, but not because John hit me, but because he’d made me smile.

  When John finally left the house that morning and the door latched shut, I could almost hear the ending of this chapter of my life. The lies, the pain, the hurt . . . he wasn’t going to be able to hurt me anymore where I was going. And while I loved the idea of him never again being able to hurt me like he had before, a part of me felt scared.

  I went into the bedroom and began packing the gym bag. I began to think about how much easier it would have been if I didn’t still love him, if somehow, I could have cut that part out of my heart. Glancing over, I saw one of his empty bottles of whiskey sitting on his nightstand—it helped dull the pain of packing. Stopping a few minutes into packing, I pressed a hand against my forehead. He’s going to be a wreck. The problem was that I did love him, and I couldn’t help but worry about him being alone with nothing but the bottle. My eyes fell to a blood stain on the carpet in our bedroom. Seeing my own blood on the carpet helped push away the worry for John and motivated me to finish packing.

  After the bedroom, I headed into the living room with the gym bag on my shoulder and retrieved the metal box from the floor beneath the piano. Shoving the money from my stash into the bag, my hands couldn’t help but tremble. This is it. I’m really going to leave him. Turning off my cellphone, I tossed it, along with my purse, into the metal box. With the remainders of my old life in a ten inch by ten inch metal box, I latched it shut and placed it back into the floor. I fixed the carpet to make it look perfect, then I stood up and walked out the front door.

  Chapter 3

  One year later . . .

  Balancing five plates of food between my two arms, I wove in a zig-zag pattern through Dixie’s Diner, dodging other servers and tables along the way. Arriving to the family of five that sat in the corner booth of the restaurant, I smiled. A pencil behind my ear, an apron on my waist, and just enough energy to get through the day was my new life in Newport, Washington. It wasn’t a glamorous life, but it was mine and it was away from John. Love, for the time being, only existed in the pages of the novels I read, the movies I watched, and in the couples or families that would come into the diner. I was okay with that fact. I needed the time over the last twelve months to allow my heart to heal, my life to rebuild, and my outlook to change.

  Over the course of twelve months, I realized just how delusional I had been when I was with John. My idea of love back then was warped. I learned this through many hours of therapy down at ‘A New Me in Christ’ Christian Counseling Center in the neighboring city of Spokane. My idea of love had relied heavily on however John was feeling that particular day. If John came home and made love to me and didn’t beat me, I felt loved. Counseling was a tough decision to follow through with, but it came after miscarrying my baby girl, whom I named Hope, at fifteen weeks pregnant. Her loss was devastating to me. After losing her, I became depressed and felt hopeless, without a reason to live. Depression seeped into my existence and crushed my spirit, and then one night, I decided to end my life with a bottle of sleeping pills. Before I did, though, I stumbled upon a Gideon Bible inside a nightstand in a cheap hotel in downtown Spokane. I started reading right where I opened—Psalms. And when I came to Psalms 46, my heart clung to the words like thirst to water in a dry place.

  God is our refuge and strength, an ever-present help in trouble. Therefore we will not fear, though the earth give way and the mountains fall into the heart of the sea.

  Psalm 46:1-2

  It was the same verse that my mother read at her own mother’s funeral. Though I had abandoned my faith in my teenage years, I returned to Jesus that night. Asking Him to rule over my life on June 1, 2014 at 1:12AM, in a dimly lit hotel room with the sound of sirens in the background, I allowed God to be God again in my life.

  Placing each plate of food in front of their respective owners at the table, I wiped my palms against my apron and asked, “Anything else?”

  “No. I think we’re good for now,” the father said with a smile. How come I can’t find a guy like
that? Being in my late twenties, I was starting to notice a trend in a world outside of marriage. All the good guys were married, and anybody who wasn’t . . . usually wasn’t for a reason.

  “Enjoy. I’ll be back in a bit to check on you,” I replied and left the table. The front door chimed, and I saw a couple that were regulars walk in—Sue and Frank. I held my breath a little as I watched them walk into my section minutes before I was scheduled to leave. My love for them ran deep, but my legs were exhausted. Seeing the couple sit down at a booth in my section, I scraped the bottom of my barrel of energy and pushed a smile out. Taking my pencil from behind my ear and the order pad from my apron, I walked over to them.

  “Who let you two in here?” I asked jokingly.

  They both laughed, and Frank asked, “How have you been holding up, Amy?” He was an older man who always wore an oil-stained, ragged hat and was missing a few of his teeth. He was, by far, one of the kindest people that I had met in Newport, always curious about my well-being and worried about me living out at the end of Piker’s Drive, a gravel road just on the outskirts of town.

  “Good,” I replied as I tilted my head and flashed my smile to Sue. “Milo is good too. He’s kind of an odd cat, but it’s nice to have someone around.”

  Sue smiled back at me and then proceeded to say, “You should really get out to some of the community events more. Lots of the women around town go to them, and maybe you’ll even meet a guy. You never know.”

  I kept my smile, even though my thoughts were anything but happy. “Thank you. We’ll see. The usual for you two?”

  “That’d be great,” Frank said.

  Jotting down their usual meatloaf and potatoes meal for the both of them, I turned and left the table. On the way back, I saw Miley at a table apologizing for a mix-up of some kind of order, and I laughed a little inside. Gotta love when that happens. Diego was on the line behind the server window and saw me attach the order slip to a clip above.

  “Good evening. How’s the battlefield?” he asked as he slid a hamburger patty onto a bun. Diego was a kind older man with a little mustache who worked hard to provide for his four children and wife at home. Dixie’s Diner wasn’t the only place he worked. He put quite a few hours in down at Lucky’s Automotive too.

  “It’s busy tonight,” I replied as I glanced over my shoulder at the packed out diner. “Guess that’s all due to your mouth watering food.”

  He smiled and looked up at me for a moment. “I told you already, Amy. You can have the car. There’s no reason to butter me up with compliments.”

  “C’mon. Just take the five hundred, Diego. I don’t want it for free. I know you have mouths to feed.”

  He laughed. “You just can’t let someone do something nice for you. Can you?” It was true. I couldn’t. I felt an overwhelming desire to work for anything and everything that came my way after leaving John. I didn’t want handouts. After a moment of quiet, he said, “Fine. I’ll take the money. But you come to me for repairs if you need it.”

  “Amy,” the manager, Wendy, said from behind me. Whirling around, I gripped the counter behind me and squeezed. She wasn’t the most pleasant woman to work for, and intimidating didn’t begin to describe her. A giant at a staggering six feet nine inches tall, she towered over anyone and everything around her. Once, making a joke about her relation to the fast food Wendy’s girl had landed me with hours cut for the next month. She’s all-around mean, but word on the street was she had good reason. Her husband of twenty years left her for his secretary—so cliché.

  “Yes?” I asked.

  “Number fourteen needs refills. Their cups are empty.” Her tone was direct and flat. It was always that way.

  Nodding, I peered through the crowded restaurant at table fourteen. Seeing the empty glass of a little boy sitting near the edge of the table, I flashed Wendy a polite smile and said, “Thanks.”

  Diego gave me and my ten-speed a lift to my house to drop off the bike and to get the cash for him. I left the bike against the side of my house and got the money from inside. Getting back into his truck, we drove over to his house. As we pulled up in the driveway, the front porch light was on. Seeing the fenced yard, the sprinkler running, and a few stray toys littering the yard warmed my heart, even though it stung a little. In your time, God. You know that in my heart, I want this someday. We got out of his truck and headed up the driveway to the garage that sat in the back and connected to the alley. Going through the gate, we came around to the garage, and we both pulled up and pushed the garage door open.

  Diego smiled as the dust settled and the 1971 lime green Ford Pinto came into view. “Not a pretty car, but it works,” he said with a shrug.

  Smiling, I nodded. “She’s perfect.”

  “She?” Diego asked as I walked in and smoothed my hand across the dust-covered hood.

  “Oh, yeah.” Glancing in through the driver’s side window, I continued, “This has too nice of an interior to not be a female.”

  He laughed and leaned to see past the garage toward his house. “It was my wife’s car, but she doesn’t use it anymore. She has one of those fancy SUVs nowadays. Hey, Amy,” he said. Turning to him, I rose an eyebrow. “Here.” He tossed the keys over. “Get in and get it out of here. I have to get inside to the wife and dinner.”

  I caught the keys and went over to Diego and gave him a hug. He was a great friend whom I viewed more like a father figure than a line cook at Dixie’s Diner. He didn’t have a lot of time in life, but he always took time to at least say ‘hi’ whenever he saw me. The first few months at the diner, when I was unsure of how to do my job, he helped. If I was falling behind, he’d run my food. If I didn’t hear an order come up, he’d repeat himself. Always helpful. “Thank you.”

  “You’re welcome, Amy. Run along now.”

  Hurrying back over to the car, I climbed inside. Dust thickened the air, but it did little to distract the smile that I found not only on my face, but in my heart. To have people who genuinely cared wasn’t something I hoped to find when I left John. I never thought about that aspect in my new life, but I was glad I found it.

  By the time I got back to my little house at the end of Piker’s Drive, a summer rain had started in. Getting out of my car, I covered the top of my head the best that I could with my hands and hurried across the gravel up my porch. Unlocking the door and going inside, I was dismayed at the sight of water dripping from the ceiling. Shouting, I dropped the car keys on the entryway table, scaring Milo out of his nap and off the couch. I darted into the kitchen and grabbed a pot. As I positioned the pot under the drip, I realized how ironic it was that I’d forced Diego to take my money only a little while ago, and now, I had no money and a leaking roof. Laughing, I sat back onto the floor to pet Milo as I thought about the agreement I had with the landlord to fix any repairs myself to save fifty bucks a month in rent.

  Chapter 4

  On my break the next morning at Dixie’s, I sat down in a booth and began calling around town to various roof contractors to see what the repair costs were for a leaky roof. There were no solid estimates on price for the repair since I wasn’t sure how bad the leak was, but I was quoted six to nine hundred as an average based on the information I provided. Getting off the phone with a jerk from Spokane who said he’d be booked out until August—two months from now—I hung up, slamming my phone down in a stint of frustration. “Ugh! Why can’t it just be simple?”

  Emma Montgomery—the co-owner of Dixie’s Diner— was nearby without my knowing and said, “Just gotta have a little faith.”

  Red with embarrassment, I looked over the booth at her. “Hey, Emma.” She was an older woman, in her late seventies, but full of life. Though Emma didn’t work at Dixie’s, she would stop in on occasion to check on the operations of the place. There was more than one occasion that I sat with her and discussed all the taboo subjects of the work place. Things like God, politics and death were at the top of the list and a blast to speak about with her. She was my
closest friend in Newport, and I cherished our relationship. My protective walls came down with Emma after hearing her testimony of meeting Jesus right after the loss of her own child years ago. We had a connection, something in common, and almost instantly became close friends. Emma was the first to know my real name because of working at Dixie’s and the need to collect taxes with my social. She helped me set up a P.O. Box in Seattle to help deter John. She knew everything about me and promised not to tell a soul. I trusted her with ease.

  Grasping the back of the booth, she worked her way into the seat across from me. Bringing her hands together on the table, she leaned in and smiled. “Joe’s a good one. He charges reasonable rates if you haven’t looked him up yet.”

  I nodded. “I called him, but he still wanted $550 even if it was simple.” Running my fingers through my hair, I shook my head and met her eyes. “I shouldn’t complain. I’m blessed. There’s just no way I can pay for something like this up front, and most places won’t accept payments.”

  Emma reached a hand out and grabbed my hand that was on the table. Giving it a squeeze, she said, “We all hit rough patches in life, kid. It happens. Would you work for the repair money at my inn? I know you won’t just take the money.”

  “You’re right, I won’t. The B and B on the lake?”

  “Yeah. Inn at the Lake. My daughter, Jody, and her husband, Wayne, need an extra hand around the—”

  “Yes!” I replied, interrupting her before she could finish. Though I hadn’t been to the lake often, I did make a few trips there over the course of the year since I had been in Newport. It was on a gorgeous lake, and I needed the money. “That would be great. I’m sure I’d love it.”

  “Have a strong back?” Emma asked with a raised brow.

  “I don’t know,” I replied, wiggling in my seat as I adjusted my back to straighten it. “I think so?”